Review of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) by Ben T — 06 Mar 2016

The Mad Max franchise is one of the most inconsistent franchise ever and no where a there more evidence to that than in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. You go from these two very gritty films where people are shot, limbs are hacked off, characters are crushed by cars and rape sequences to a kid friendly Mad Max, and there you have Beyond Thunderdome's biggest problem, this film is much more tame and doesn't feel like a Mad Max film.

If I'm being completely honest Beyond Thunderdome is very hard to review as it doesn't even feel like a film, it feels like two. The first 45 minutes of this film are great, it's set in Thunderdome, we have a great villain in Master Blaster and we get a really awesome fight scene.

Then in the second half we get this weird cross between Lord of the Flies and Peter Pan where Max goes and basically adopts a tone of kids, this part of the film is boring and quite bad. To be honest this film isn't all bad.

The acting here is quite good. Mel Gibson is again great as Max and I love the scene in the Thunderdome arena when he finds out something and Mel Gibson does a great job. However my problem is that Max has gone from this normal guy who just had quick reflexes in the first two films to this superhero guy who can sense attacks from behind and his reflexes are very exaggerated.

Tina Turner is actually pretty good to be honest. True she isn't great and I don't find her very intimidating but she does a good job. Bruce Spence also appears again but he's for some stupid reason not playing the Gyro Captain although his character here is literally the same.

George Miller did a really good job directing the first half but if I'm being honest I don't think he directed the second half very well because it's an absolute snooze fest. The action here is quite hit and miss if I'm being honest.

The action scene in the Thunderdome arena between Max and Blaster is really good, it's tense and has a relay good reveal, it's also quite different as George Miller decided to have Max and Blaster attached to bungee cords which adds a different aspect to the fight.

That's a great action scene but then you get to the ending action sequence which is the worst action scene in any Mad Max film. It would be good if it wasn't so goofy as no one dies instead people get whacked in the head with frying pans like its a slapstick comedy.

The second half of this film has some interesting elements like the kids backstory but to be honest I just get bored watching this Peter Pan style section. A lot of this film relies on Mel and the kids.

Mel is good, the kids however are not which makes the scene where they have to act difficult to watch. Also a big problem is that the film doesn't really have a real villain. All of the 'villains' are all redeemed in some aspect so by the end there isn't really a clear problem which is a big shame as the villains are some of the best aspects of the Mad Max movies.

Overall Beyond Thunderdome is a very dissapointing film that starts out great but after the first 45 minutes the quality severely dips. This isn't a bad film but it's a very mediocre film. B-.